New College London
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New College London (1850-1980) (sometimes known as New College, St. John's Wood, or New College, Hampstead) was founded as a Congregationalist college in 1850 by the amalgamation of Coward College, Highbury College, and the theological function of Homerton College (the latter was refounded as a teacher training college and became part of the University of Cambridge.)
When, in 1900, the University of London opened its first Faculty of Theology, this was achieved by absorbing New College, along with another independent college, Hackney College, an institution that had sometime earlier been relocated from its origins in Hackney, to a fine new building in Hampstead and was now associated with Peter Taylor Forsyth.
The University of London's theological faculty was later granted more status and independence, being formed, by Act of Parliament in 1924, into a college of the University of London, Hackney and New College, the two names by which its disparate buildings throughout north London were commonly known. In 1936, the name of the London University theological college was simplified to 'New College, London', harking back to the Congregationalist merger of 1850.
When, in 1972, most English Congregational churches joined the newly formed United Reformed Church (URC), and only a small number remained independent, the New College's work was reorganised. In 1976, the library of the college was donated to Dr Williams's Library [1]. Since 1981, the work of the college has been continued by the New College London Foundation [2]: that organisation which trains ministers for the URC and Congregational churches.
New College has gathered many leading thinkers from the Congregationalist, Calvinist and United Reformed traditions.
- Rev John Harris D.D. was its first Principal, succeeded by Rev Robert Halley D.D.
- Walter Frederic Adeney was educated at the college and was lecturer in Biblical and systematic theology at New College in the 1880s [3].
- Bertram Lee-Woolf, a leading authority on the work of Martin Luther [4] held a professorship at the college.
- Howard Scullard was a governor of the college from 1930 until 1980 [5].
- The Revd. John Huxtable, Principal of the college 1953-64, helped to found the URC and became its first Moderator.
- The Revd. Dr G F Nuttall, Lecturer in Church History at the college [6], was elected to membership of the British Academy in 1991 [7].
- Ron Price, a New Testament scholar, studied at the college in the 1960s [8].
- The Revd. Elizabeth Welch, Moderator of the URC in the West Midlands, studied at the college in the 1970s [9].
- David Peel, the URC’s Moderator of General Assembly for 2005-2006, came under the influence of the college while residing there as a student lodger ("hostelman") [10].
Despite the name the college was never associated with Royal Holloway and Bedford New College.
